


if the world was ending, you'd come over (right?)

by phichithamsters



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking to Cope, In Vino Veritas, M/M, Modern AU, One Shot, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23739175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phichithamsters/pseuds/phichithamsters
Summary: He misses the way Felix’s body would fold against him after a long day, filling all the cracks and corners of Sylvain he didn’t realize were empty. He misses the way Felix would kiss him, gently in private— Felix was never one for PDA, but sometimes he would slip a hand into Sylvain’s back pocket as they walked, like the couples in those old 80’s movies Felix loved to watch. The way Felix would scold him for distracting him as he worked; the way he would always relent when Sylvain would wrap his arms around Felix’s shoulders and kiss his neck until Felix would take off his reading glasses with a sigh so he could tackle Sylvain onto the couch.He’s just lonely, Sylvain reasons with himself. Lonely and drunk. He’ll call Felix as a friend, talk to him about friend things. No expectations, no strings, just… friends talking. He can do that.--If the world was ending, Sylvain would want to spend his last night with Felix.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	if the world was ending, you'd come over (right?)

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a songfic, but it's not _not_ a songfic. With that said, however, recommended listening for this fic is [If The World Was Ending](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jO2wSpAoxA) by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels.

Sylvain is drunk. 

Too drunk. Who let him get this drunk? Someone really should have stopped him from drinking on a Tuesday night, alone at his kitchen counter. Half a bottle of gin and even Sylvain’s notoriously high tolerance is caving under the pressure. 

The tiled walls around him seem to be spinning, and the edges of the room are starting to blend together. It isn’t _bad_ , just fuzzy. Sylvain lays his head down on the counter; it’s cool against his cheek. Is the buzzing from his fluorescent lights, or is it all in his head? He sighs.

His thoughts drift, as they always seem to, to Felix. _What is Felix doing right now?_ Sylvain thinks, and he glances at the clock above his stove. God, is it only 10:30 pm? 

Sylvain knocks the edge of his glass against the counter, and it makes a satisfying ringing sound. He scoffs. 

Thinking about Felix, even unprompted like this, it _hurts_. Sylvain had spent the past year re-learning how to think about Felix without wanting to scream until his lungs collapsed. It sort of worked— in between spending time with Ingrid and Dimitri, the four of them started to rebuild their friend group and he and Felix had fallen into an uneasy peace. They were friends now, or so they had told each other. Felix had clearly moved on, but Sylvain...

He had been the one to break it off in the first place. Sylvain told Felix that he wasn’t right for him, that he was too much of a player, that he would end up hurting Felic in the end. All lines he’d used before, but this time Sylvain actually meant them. Felix, on the other hand, he had wanted to fight for them, but Sylvain didn’t let him— he didn’t deserve someone as loyal, as devoted as Felix. Felix was too good for him. 

Besides, Felix wasn’t looking for anything serious, and neither was he. So Sylvain decided to spare them future pain by breaking things off early. 

After the breakup, Sylvain had ignored Felix for a while, but that was fair. Sylvain needed to give him space, and he felt awful for hurting Felix. While Sylvain wanted to give Felix anything he needed, he knew that it would only drag out the healing if he kept coming over every time Felix asked. 

And Felix asked. A lot. 

While time and space had slowly healed Felix, it only served to make Sylvain realize his mistake. But at that point it was too late; Felix was going on dates, and he was almost finished picking up the pieces of himself that Sylvain had so carelessly dropped on the ground. 

10:30 pm meant Felix is probably studying, Sylvain thinks. It seems like all Felix would do these days is study. When they went out for drinks, which was rarely, all he would talk about was his research. Sylvain, along with Claude and Dorothea, had tried to drag him to clubs on multiple occasions, but they soon realized that they’d have to settle for the once a month Felix dragged himself out of his cave of a studio apartment to go to dinner with them. 

Sylvain sighs. He runs his finger around the rim of the glass for a little, before finishing the rest of his drink with a grimace. He has to squint to make out the numbers on the clock again— it’s only been three minutes since he checked. It feels like a shame to go to bed so early, but Sylvain feels like he’s been punched in the head, and thinking about Felix isn't helping.

Maybe he should call Felix. Or text him, at least. Sylvain fumbles his phone out of his back pocket (it takes a second— did his pockets get smaller?) before he remembers what Ingrid had told him last time he drunk dialed her instead of Felix. Something about “boundaries” and how Felix had a hard enough time getting over him. Calling Felix right now would definitely be crossing a line, but he doesn’t really care. He shouldn’t call Felix, but he wants to. 

He misses the way Felix’s body would fold against him after a long day, filling all the cracks and corners of Sylvain he didn’t realize were empty. He misses the way Felix would kiss him, gently in private— Felix was never one for PDA, but sometimes he would slip a hand into Sylvain’s back pocket as they walked, like the couples in those old 80’s movies Felix loved to watch. The way Felix would scold him for distracting him as he worked; the way he would always relent when Sylvain would wrap his arms around Felix’s shoulders and kiss his neck until Felix would take off his reading glasses with a sigh so he could tackle Sylvain onto the couch.

He’s just lonely, Sylvain reasons with himself. Lonely and drunk. He’ll call Felix as a friend, talk to him about friend things. No expectations, no strings, just… friends talking. He can do that.

Sylvain tells himself he had good intentions as he chooses Felix’s picture from a list of blurry contacts and hits “call.”

He drops the phone on the counter and hits the speaker button. Pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes to block out the extra light, Sylvain waits. 

Felix doesn’t pick up the first time, so Sylvain pokes the redial button and lets it ring. No answer, so Sylvain tries a third time, because the third time's supposed to be the charm. 

Since when has Sylvain ever been lucky? 

“You better be dying,” Felix says when he finally answers. “You know I have a proposal due tomorrow.”

“No no no, sorry, not dying,” Sylvain tries to sound apologetic, but the ends of his words twist together. He hears them come out of his mouth, warped and wasted, and he immediately regrets calling.

“Are you drunk?” Felix asks incredulously. Sylvain giggles a little at that. Felix _had_ always been so perceptive. 

“You’re disgusting. It’s 10:30 on a Tuesday night,” Felix says. “Whatever. Why are you calling?”

“I forgot about your proposal, sorry,” Sylvain says. He’s tripping over his words— why did he call? He can’t remember.

“Well I’ve stopped working now, so you better have a good excuse for calling me so many times.”

Sylvain could have sworn it was only three. 

“Um, I just wanted to talk to you,” Sylvain says, and it sounds stupid but it’s true. 

Felix scoffs on the other end of the line. “You’re pathetic,” he says. “Stop calling me when you’re drunk or we aren’t friends anymore.”

Before Sylvain can think, he asks, “Are we even friends anymore?”

Felix pauses. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. His voice is softer now, Sylvain thinks. It doesn’t have the bite from earlier. 

Sylvain tries to take another drink, and it’s halfway to his mouth before he realizes that it’s empty, save for a few cubes of ice that clink sadly at the bottom of the glass. He pushes it away from him and it slides across the counter. 

“We’re not friends anymore, really,” he says. “Like, who are we kidding? Things have been different ever since we broke up.” Sylvain feels the words slipping out of his mouth— he knows he’s not _supposed_ to say them, but who’s there to tell him not to?

Nobody is there to stop him, because Sylvain is alone in his house on a Tuesday night, with no friends and no plans other than getting shitfaced by himself. 

“If I knew you were going to get me to talk about our relationship, I wouldn’t have answered,” Felix says coldly. 

That’s right. Felix is here. Felix is here to remind him what an asshole he was— he still is. He’d always been the voice of reason in their relationship. When Sylvain had told him that he thought they should break up, the first thing Felix said was, “It’s probably for the best.”

“What happened to us, Felix?” Sylvain asks. His throat constricts like the words are fighting him. It sure feels like they are. 

“I can’t talk about this right now.” 

“Felix…” Sylvain starts, but he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, or where he’s going. He doesn’t even know what he wants. 

“Is that it?” Felix asks curtly. “Great. Then I’m going to get back to my paper.”

Sylvain panics. “Wait! Wait— Felix, please don’t hang up.” He hates the way his voice sounds, shaky and small. 

“Goodnight, Sylvain,” Felix says. “I’ll talk to you when you’re sober.”

“Felix, please—“ Sylvain asks desperately, and in a last-ditch attempt: “Felix, if the world was ending, you’d come over, right?”

Felix doesn’t say anything, but he also doesn't hang up the phone. Sylvain takes it as a good sign. 

The line is quiet for a while, and Sylvain holds his breath. Eventually, Felix speaks. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks in a quiet voice. 

Sylvain nods. _Okay, keep going, just keep talking_ , he tells himself. 

“If the world was going to end tomorrow, would you come over? To my place?” Sylvain clarifies, like it makes any of what he’s saying even remotely _better_. 

Liquid courage keeps him talking. “I know we didn’t work out, or whatever, and I know we aren’t together anymore, but, like, _hypothetically_ : wouldn’t you want to spend our last night on earth together?”

He remembers how it felt to hold Felix in his arms, to curl his body around Felix’s and run his hands through Felix’s hair. That was one of his favorite things to do— when they were friends the first time, Sylvain had always longed to tangle his fingers through Felix’s curtain of hair and keep them there forever. When they hooked up for the first time, and Sylvain grabbed a handful of Felix’s hair as he pushed him up against a door, he had never been happier. 

Well, that wasn’t true. He had never been happier than when he was dating Felix. Felix was cold and prickly to the outside world and warm to him. It was like a dream come true to watch Felix slowly break down his walls in the six months that they dated, telling Sylvain the things he’d never said out loud before, confiding in him, trusting him. Letting someone else look out for him. There was a privilege in that, Sylvain realized, far too late. 

Felix doesn’t tell him things anymore. They’re friends, or so they say, but it doesn’t _feel_ like that. It feels like they’re strangers pretending to be friends, puppeted by expectations. 

Sylvain hears Felix sigh into the phone. “I can’t talk about this right now, Sylvain,” he repeats, and it hurts worse the second time. Sylvain’s heart drops. 

“Are you happy?” Sylvain blurts, because he doesn’t want the conversation to end, even though everything Felix says is like a sharp knife to the chest. But it’s ok, he thinks, because it’s Felix. 

“I’m not happy,” Sylvain continues. “I have never been happier than when I was with you. When we were dating.”

Sylvain’s words are still slurring but he feels them with conviction. He holds his breath and waits for Felix’s response. 

The line is silent. The only indication that Felix is still on the call is the steady tick of the numbers on the screen, counting the time they’ve been talking. 

“Goodnight, Sylvain. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Felix says, and all the air leaves Sylvain. 

Felix hangs up before Sylvain can try to stop him. 

_Shit._

Sylvain stares at his phone for a few minutes, watching the apps on his home screen until it goes dark. The stupidity of his actions doesn’t hit him all at once, it sinks in slowly as Sylvain listens to the lonely consonance of his empty kitchen. 

Ingrid was right. Calling Felix was a bad idea. 

But not because of Felix— because now, Sylvain knows that there is no more chance between them. Sylvain’s last chance to win Felix back wasn’t some grand romantic gesture or even a heartfelt confession; instead, Sylvain wasted it on a drunk call that he likely won’t remember in the morning. 

Well, there’s still a chance he’ll remember it. Sylvain can’t do much, but he can make sure that the memory of this night is tucked into the recesses of his brain so he will never have to relieve the embarrassment of what he just did ever again. 

And maybe being blackout drunk will be just enough of an excuse to make Felix forgive him. 

The open bottle of gin is still on the counter— Sylvain thanks his past self for being irresponsible and not putting it away—so he takes a swig straight from the source. His glass is out of his reach. 

Sylvain lays his head on the counter, one hand on his phone, the other wrapped around the glass bottle, and he closes his eyes. 

A tiny voice in his head tells him to go to his room— or at least, to the couch that’s five feet away, but Sylvain can’t be bothered. Just a second, Sylvain tells the voice, and then he falls asleep. 

* * *

Through the fog of his dreams, Sylvain can hear a buzzing. He opens his eyes and grimaces— the kitchen lights are blinding and somehow they’ve gotten louder. Squinting, Sylvain checks his phone for the time and realizes the buzzing sound is someone calling him. And that someone is Felix. 

Before he can answer, the call ends. “Shit,” Sylvain whispers, scrambling to unlock his phone. He has two missed texts from Felix as well— _what the hell happened when he was asleep?_ Sylvain holds his phone close to his face, because, for some reason, he can’t make out all of the individual apps. As he’s trying to locate his contacts, his phone rings again. Sylvain almost falls out of his seat, but he manages to slide open his phone to answer the call. 

“Felix?”

“Come outside,” Felix says, and then hangs up the phone. 

Sylvain checks the stove clock. It’s near 1 am, but he stumbles to the door of his condo anyways. He fumbles on a pair of moccasins and unlocks his front door. It swings open with a rush of air. 

Felix stands on his front step, his nose red from the cold. Sylvain barely registers that it’s winter— the alcohol in his system is enough to keep him warm. 

“What are you—“

“Shut up,” Felix says, and then he presses his fingers into his temples and grimaces. “Sorry,” he says. “Let me start over.” 

Sylvain nods dumbly. Felix has his hair down and he’s wearing a large sweater. His socks stick out from the top of his boots. They don’t match. 

Everything about the situation in front of him feels like a dream, but it can’t be a dream. Felix never apologizes in his dreams. 

“I finished my proposal, no thanks to you,” Felix says, and Sylvain chimes in with a small “my bad,” before remembering Felix told him to shut up. 

“Whatever. That’s not the point. The point is…” Felix pauses to take a breath. “The point is, I’m not happy. I haven’t been happy since we broke up.”

Sylvain is stunned into silence. He opens his mouth to speak, but he realizes that he has no idea what to say. He shuts it quickly and continues to stare at Felix, whose eyes are trained on the ground. 

When Felix told him he loved him for the first time, he looked like this. 

Is that what’s happening now? God, Sylvain hopes so. 

Felix looks up again, and Sylvain can see that there is a blush creeping up his neck and his eyes look wide and earnest. 

“Felix?”

“And if I had one more night on earth, I would want to spend it with you,” Felix says, a little too quickly, a little too loudly. 

It’s the most beautiful thing Sylvain has ever heard. 

“I want that too—”

“And, I know we didn’t work out, or whatever,” Felix bowls ahead, like _he’s_ the one that can’t stop talking now, “But I wanted to try then, and I want to try now.”

Sylvain nods, a little dumbstruck, but it’s okay because it’s _Felix,_ and he’s standing in front of him, and he’s real and raw and it’s better than Sylvain’s dreams.

Sylvain steadies a hand against the door and gives Felix a wide smile. Felix smiles back, small and shy but it reaches all the way to eyes and makes his cheeks crinkle. 

“Do you wanna come in?” Sylvain asks. He feels like he’s been waiting his whole life. 

”I’d like that,” Felix says, and follows him inside. 

**Author's Note:**

> My biggest thank you to Pep, whose genius playlists helped inspire this piece, _and_ who workshopped it with me so that I could get it to the place that I wanted. She writes my favorite Sylvix, so [check her out on AO3!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeppyBismilk/pseuds/PeppyBismilk)
> 
> Also, find me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/phichithamsters)


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